


Sidekicks Make Masks

by Pigeonsplotinsecrecy



Series: MacGyver May [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Masks, bozer's amateur films, macgyver may
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 14:44:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18719176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeonsplotinsecrecy/pseuds/Pigeonsplotinsecrecy
Summary: How Bozer felt leading up to finding out the truth about what MacGyver really did for a living and how it gave Bozer's life new purpose.





	Sidekicks Make Masks

For a long time, Bozer didn’t know there were two Macs. He spent his time making cheesy movies and working a tedious job until his film career could pick up (it never did). He’d spend many nights alone, writing scripts and crafting masks for his next zombified George Washington film, and with the time-consuming task of making everything just so (because he was aiming to make good quality cheesy movies), he didn’t notice how Mac was gone so often, disappearing more than was normal. Of course, he noticed Mac was gone, but if he had been paying attention more closely, he would have recognized the signs of Mac living a super hero secret life: the suspicious trips, the long hours, the skirting around the topic of what he actually did at work, the half-truths, and the times Mac seemed inexplicably hopeless about the state of the world. Bozer wasn’t stupid; he had always felt like he was missing something (because Mac had never been good at lying to Bozer) though he had never imagined what.

For a while, the secret was okay because Bozer could live in blissful ignorance and Mac could live his double life, being one person at work and another at home. Unfortunately, there’s only so much hiding a person can do before he stops being himself and becomes two roles instead. Bozer started to feel like he was only ever getting half of his friend. Mac was wearing a mask even when he was at home and it didn’t seem like he planned on taking it off. Bozer didn’t think it was healthy for any person to always carefully curate how they were viewed by the world, particularly by the people they were closest to. Friendship is the packed storage shed, where all the junk and treasures are lumped together while acquaintanceship is the pristine museum showing only the best, and the most valuable things could only be found under boxes stuffed with childhood trinkets and mysteriously sticky science fair ribbons.

Bozer wondered if he’d been locked out of the storage shed. No, not yet, he thought, but if things don’t change then someday soon Mac will change the locks. People flaunt their art, showing it off to the public but keep their shit in a dark, musty room under lock and key. Funny how that works.

Mac was still the lovable tinkerer who broke all Boze’s blenders and fixed the carnage left behind after Bozer’s slipshod special effect efforts (he was no MacGyver when it came to making something out of nothing), but sometimes, Mac seemed so hollow, his smile not quite reaching his eyes as he had to keep the burdens of a no doubt stressful job locked behind the façade of an easy-going think tanker who came up with ideas but didn’t enact them. Bozer later wondered how he could ever believe that Mac would even be capable of having a job where he just say around thinking. But maybe he just rationalized that as the cause of Mac’s ill ease, telling himself that Mac was different because his work left him empty, unfulfilled, and, perhaps, Bozer was projecting.

No matter what the cause, Bozer started to feel distant from Mac, not just when Mac was in some undisclosed part of the world but even when they were just sitting at opposite ends at the couch. What happened to being best friends? Bozer still considered Mac his best friend but wondered if he’d been replaced, perhaps by Mac’s coworker, Jack. Bozer wasn’t bitter about it, but he was a little hurt. It was hard watching a person you’d known since fifth grade gradually become a stranger. Bozer wasn’t sure of his place in Mac’s life anymore, and it was especially hard to think that he was no longer important to the person who was most important to him. The unbalance of their relationship was practically tangible.

The doubts were building in Bozer’s mind, and sometimes, when their relationship fell back into moments of normalcy, Bozer wondered if he was just imaging the distance. Maybe the second Mac he didn’t seem to know was just a product of Bozer’s own discomfort of where his life wound up. Maybe Mac wasn’t different at all. Maybe it was Bozer that was the problem. He’d spend hours, thinking about what he might have done to mess up their relationship because Mac, good-hearted, selfless Mac couldn’t possibly be the problem.

The invisible rift in their friendship was beginning to drive Bozer crazy, but he didn’t bring it up because he wasn’t even sure how to define it. It was more mysterious and horrific then any film Bozer had made. 

But, then, Bozer had learned the truth and he had gone from making films to living in a never ending action movie, but instead of being the hero, he felt like the dorky sidekick. He felt stupid and angry for falling for Mac’s tricks, and as he began to see the duality of the one MacGyver, a heaviness settled on his mind as all the things Mac hadn’t been able to tell him stacked up. The lies and lies by omission felt like “Angus,” the kind of guy who was too tough and cool to be bullied for a silly name, who was confident and didn’t care what other people thought, while everything Bozer knew and loved about his friend still felt like Mac, the ten-year old turned adult that hated his first name because while the bullying had stopped, the bad memories still remained, the kid who liked to prove his wit because thought being smarter might keep the bullies away and bring his father back.

How was Bozer supposed to consolidate these two people?

While the case if two Macs was a quandary, somewhere amid the anger and confusion, Bozer felt relief. At least he knew the truth now, the reason why things had been so off with him and Mac, and when you knew what the problem was, you could fix it. Maybe they had a long way to go to being back to okay, and maybe Bozer had to somehow mash two people back into one, but things would be okay. They were still best friends, after all.

Best friends could fall out and then come back stronger. Best friends didn’t have to be witty, smart, or successful to prove they were worth loving. Best friends didn’t give up on each other. Best friends were worth fighting for.

Bozer had given out a bloody nose defending Mac before and he wasn’t going to stop just because Mac was a badass superhero. Even superman had kryptonite, and no one knew the things that would blindside Mac better than Bozer. That’s the most important job of a sidekick, protecting the hero from himself.

Good-hearted, selfless Mac wanted to save the whole damn world and Bozer would make sure Mac didn’t lose himself in the process. He’d make sure that Mac didn’t have to live as two people.  He’d make sure Mac ate and slept. He’d make sure Mac didn’t burn the house down. He’d make sure Mac always had a bowl of paperclips. Yes, Bozer, would make sure Mac was okay when Mac was too consumed by the moment to know what okay meant.

To be a sidekick was to help the hero put his mask on, so the villains couldn’t abuse his goodness, but at the end of the day, the most important job of a sidekick was to help the hero take the mask off, to remind him that even when he wears it, he’s the same wonderful person, and most importantly to rebuild the mask when it crumbles under the pressure of the world’s evils and to make sure that when the mask falls, the person beneath it can still stand.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I love Bozer and Mac's friendship (I have a soft spot for friendships that survive the teenage years lol) so I thought I'd write this up. Hope you enjoyed this! Thanks for reading xxx


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